Themenschwerpunkt: Scientific Autobiographies as Literary Genre and Historical Sources – Die Wissenschaftliche Autobiographie zwischen literarischer Gattung und historischer Quelle – L‘autobiographie scientifque entre genre littéraire et source historique
Gastherausgeber: Nicolas Robin / Gerhard Wiesenfeldt

Editorial: Scientific Autobiographies as Literary Genre and Historical Sources
Seite 8–11

Gabriele Dürbeck
„As if I were a dead man in another world“
Darwins Autobiography zwischen empiristischer Untersuchung und teleologischem Erzählen
Seite 13–34

Abstract
This paper analyses Darwin‘s Autobiography from the perspective of literary criticism. It argues that while the construction of the topic follows empiricist principles, the narrative structure includes older teleological patterns. First, the paper demonstrates that Darwin, in order to undertake a quasi-scientific analysis of the conditions of his career, distinguishes between himself as narrator and as object of investigation. Resuming the content of the text, it is then analysed how empiricist means of representation like observation, data collection, concentration and reduction, proof, and causal explanation organise the self-portrayal. Thirdly, the paper analyses the construction of consistency and coherence in the autobiography. Darwin presents his voyage on the Beagle as a turning point, suggests a smooth continuous development of his mental qualities without any crisis, and pre-dates his commitment to agnosticism to the early stages of his notes for what would later become his main work, The Origin of Species. Building on the observation that Darwin presents his development from child beetle collector to mature scientist as the consequence of innate qualities and favourable circumstances, the paper finally reconstructs teleological traits in the narrative structure that owe to the traditions of late Enlightenment philosophy of history and literary autobiography in the age of Goethe.

Stefan Blechschmidt
Außenperspektiven
Goethes Morphologie des Selbst
Seite 13–34

Abstract
The view on Goethe‘s autobiographical writing often proves to be limited. By focussing on the series Aus meinem Leben, the origins seem to come out of sight. The descent of Goethe‘s autobiography relates to his work on the history of science in the Materialien zur Geschichte der Farbenlehre. Transitions indicate a gradual formation of a pattern which has never been changed until Goethe‘s review of Saint-Hilaire‘s Principes de Philosophie Zoologique in 1830. Where historiography and autobiography meet, the morphology of the self asserts its right.

Irène Passeron
D‘Alembert
Construction d‘une identité scientifique au XVIIIe siècle
Seite 59–80

Abstract
D‘Alembert, as well as being the co-editor of the Encyclopédie with Diderot, a distinguished member of Paris Royal Academy of Science, and perpetual secretary of the French Academy, is also a „bastard“ without father or property („nec pater, nec res“). The encyclopedist has widely contributed to define the independency of man of letters (Essai sur les gens de lettres et les grands) and the qualities of the scientific author. D‘Alembert has built the scientific Persona through his best-known texts („Discours préliminaire“ of the Encyclopédie,entries „Erudition“, „Géomètre“) and nowadays less-known ones (eulogies of the members of the French Academy). One can also find this construction in D‘Alembert‘s account of his life, written around 1771 at the height of his academic glory, and unpublished during his lifetime. In this text, D‘Alembert stages his own career, and thus enhances the links between scientific production, social legitimity and relationship with the Great. He resumes the self-description of the virtous scientist he made in his account in the „Eloges“, especially in the first one delivered in 1774, about Massillon. One can endeavour to explore the system of tensions between men of letters and the Great, between science and religion, that these texts enact, in the context of social identities in construction.

Christian Forstner
Die Inszenierung eines Genies
Richard P. Feymann
Seite 81–100

Abstract

In 1965 the Nobel Foundation honored Sin-Itiro Tomonaga, Julian Schwinger, and Richard Feynman for their fundamental work in quantum electrodynamics and the consequences for the physics of elementary particles. In contrast to both of his colleagues only Richard Feynman appeared as a genius before the public. In his autobiographies he managed to connect his behavior, which contradicted several social and scientific norms, with the American myth of the „practical man“. This connection led to the image of a common American with extraordinary scientific abilities and contributed extensively to enhance the image of Feynman as genius in the public opinion. Is this image resulting from Feynman‘s autobiographies in accordance with the historical facts? This question is the starting point for a deeper historical analysis that tries to put Feynman and his actions back in the historical context. The image of a „genius“ appears then as a construct resulting from the public reception of brilliant scientific research.

Alexandre Klein
Les écritures du moi en histoire des sciences
Les apports de la correspondance d‘Alfred Binet
Seite 101–115

Abstract
Unlike autobiography and private diary, letters are deserted land of self writing. They offer yet at historian of sciences same advantages of his writing-sisters. Correspondence of French psychologist Alfred Binet shows those supplies with giving an original enlighten about constitution and comprehension of his works. Near scientific autobiography, scientists‘ letters militate in favour of social, cultural and cognitive history of sciences.

Papers – Artikel – Aticles

Denis Diagre-Vanderpelen / Ivan Hoste
La Guerre des Roses
François Crépin (1831–1903) contre Paul Evariste Parmentier (1860–1841), un antique contre un
moderne?
Seite 117–159

Abstract
While some young botanists of the State Botanic Garden of Belgium were publishing thousands of pages dedicated to the plants collected in Congo, at the end of the XIXth Century, the director of the very institution was facing the end of an era. It was not only the end of his own reign as a first violin in the national garden but also the end of the scientific method he used for decades to achieve his opus magnum: the monography of the genus Rosa L. François Crépin (1831–1903) belonged to the generation of taxonomists who trusted morphology, he was a self-made man, had no formal education, no academic background, and as such was some sort of a typus for a disappearing species. Then came a new kind of taxonomists, with a strong educational background, trained in the trendy laboratories. They claimed that anatomical studies were able to get old-fashioned botanists out of the rut. They thought they were en route to solve the species definition problem, phylogeny and classification of huge and difficult groups. That is how Paul Evariste Parmentier (1860–1941) appeared in Crépin‘s life. The Frenchman thought their collaboration was to succeed in the definite study of Rosa. Misunderstandings, excess of selfconfidence, lack of modesty, tactlessness, stress, fear, dishonesty, are all responsible for the failure of the collaboration project. They are all responsible for depressive mood Crépin suffered in the last year of his life and his scientific sterility after 1898, as well. Actually, a young botanist, mastering a new method, had killed a relict. It could be regarded as a „scientific parricide“ which is a common event in the course of the history of sciences. The awaited Monographie des Roses was never to be published.

Daniel Ulbrich
Übersetzungen des Gehalts – Übertragungen der Benennung
Zur Rekonstruktion des Problematisierungsniveaus naturwissenschaftlichen Übersetzens um 1800
Seite 161–181

Abstract
This article examines the discourse on and the practices of scientific translation circa 1800. According to the received view, 18th century translations of scientific texts were neither subject to rigorous demands of linguistic fidelity (being treated in an eclectic manner and as an essentially un-problematic enterprise instead) nor did they stimulate discussion on the conditions of possibility of translation, nor reflection upon interdependences between linguistic structure and world view implied therein. It will be argued that this notion of lacking linguistic awareness among translators of 18th century scientific texts requires qualification at least in two different respects. Thus, the exploration and scrutiny of a corpus of contemporary reviews of scientific translations will disclose and display the systematic character of this apparent laxity towards linguistic fidelity by relating it to the premises of 18th century publication practices of scientific texts. In turn, a joint analysis of Antoine Laurent de Lavoisier‘s proposal for a reform of chemical nomenclature (1787) and its reception and translation in Germany, as exemplified by the self-declared „impartial nomenclature“ of Friedrich Albert Carl Gren (1795), will demonstrate that linguistic considerations did not only play an important role in turn-of-the-century scientific discourse, but did in fact entail insights into the mutual relationship between linguistic structure and world view.

Michal Simunek / Thomas Mayer / Uwe Hoßfeld / Olaf Breidbach
Johann Gregor Mendel
Mendelianismus in Böhmen und Mähren 1900–1930
Seite 183–204

Abstract
Bohemia and Moravia played a special role in the development of early genetics in the first half of the 20th century. The objective of this paper is to highlight the ambivalence in adoption of the new paradigm within the context of views on issues of heredity / inheritance. As results from this aim, the main focus lies namely on the general discussion among the relevant representatives of the life sciences in Bohemia and Moravia. Probably for the first time it includes both the Czech and German speaking local scientists. This approach seems to be especially important for being an indispensable prerequisite for interpreting the complicated process of adoption of Mendelian thought and establishment of genetics as a special branche both within theoretical biology and practical (applied) branches within agricultural and medical sciences in the Czech regions and Czechoslovakia from 1900 to 1930. Taking into account this objective, a number of analytical levels was chosen. First there is a general context of pre-Mendelian understanding of hereditary issues that is closely tied with at that time contemporary attitude towards the question of evolution. Second we try to give a short overview of the relations and approaches between considerably diversified disciplinary knowledge towards Mendelism / Mendelianism. This distinction reflects the differences in promoting and understanding the Mendel‘s hereditary paradigm of that time. At this point a short reminder of personal-professional relationships is given as well. Third we describe the role and contribution of the contemporary initiatives, originated mainly from Brno / Brünn, for the permanent anchoring of Mendels personality and his intellectual heritage both in the general public and the history of modern biology.

Claudia Taszus
Okens Isis
Pressefreiheit, Restriktionen und Zensur in Mitteldeutschland in der ersten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts
Seite 205–241

Abstract
In June 1819 a decision of Charles Augustus, grand duke of Saxony-Weimar-Eisenach, resulted in one of the most intriguing and protracted cases of press censorship of the early19th century in the grand duchy. The dismissal of professor Lorenz Oken from the university of Jena and the banning of his journal Isis oder encyclopädische Zeitung illustrates at a social, political, scientific and intellectual level a highly contradictory state of affairs in the former German Holy Roman Empire after the end of the Napoleonic wars. This analysis, partly based on new research materials and sources, investigates the extended period (1816–1848) thereby attempting to enhance an understanding of the censorial processes and provide insights into the basic nature of the controversy. It becomes clear from the continued publication of the Isis after its original ban, that what was ostensibly a problem of local censorship in Saxon-Weimar, actually served as a useful temporary purpose for Metternich‘s restorative forces to engage in political interests at a higher German federal level.

Georg S. Levit / Uwe Hoßfeld / Nicolas Robin
Le darwinisme en cause
Essai de synthèse des théories alternatives
Seite 243–266

Abstract
First objections against Darwin‘s theory of evolution were announced immediately after its appearance (Darwin, Ch. 1859). The opponents questioned, for instance, the adaptive character of evolution, the gradualness of evolutionary changes, and the random character of variation. Discussions around these and related topics gave rise to the establishment of explanatory models explicitly opposed to the Darwinian principles. Darwin‘s death in 1882 only intensified the manifold debates between supporters and critics of his evolutionary theory. Between 1859 and the century‘s turn the evolutionary biologists concentrated mainly on the evidences for evolution as it is and on the phylogenetic reconstructions. In the following years, up to the establishment of the Synthetic Theory of Evolution in the 1930‘s and 1940‘s (see below), the exact causal relations of evolutionary events (the issues of direct and indirect inheritance, the role of mutation, isolation, selection and geographic isolation or questions concerning the progress of evolution) became the focal point of discussions between various scientific schools. The controversies over Darwinism nourished the self-confidence of Alternative Theories of Evolution (ATE). Therefore the first third of the twentieth century was the heydays of ATE, which were flourishing especially in Germany, where they appeared in the scientific landscape with all clarity and conceptual maturity. In our contribution we overview and define the major „Alternative Evolutionary Theories“ and suggest the criteria of their classification.

Research project – Forschungsprojekt – Projet de recherche

Silke Fengler / Christian Forstner
Austrian Nuclear Research (1900–1960)
A Research Proposal
Seite 267–276